Official Report: search what was said in Parliament
The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
The Official Report search offers lots of different ways to find the information you’re looking for. The search is used as a professional tool by researchers and third-party organisations. It is also used by members of the public who may have less parliamentary awareness. This means it needs to provide the ability to run complex searches, and the ability to browse reports or perform a simple keyword search.
Searching by different views
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
- Report: this is the whole Official Report for a particular meeting of a committee or Parliament
- Item of business: this is each individual agenda item in an Official Report. For example, Portfolio Questions would be the item of business in a Meeting of the Parliament report
- Contribution: this is each time someone has made a spoken contribution to a meeting.
Depending on the kind of search you want to do, one of these views will be the best option. The default view is to show the report for each meeting of Parliament or a committee. For a simple keyword search, the results will be shown by item of business.
Search by MSP
When you choose to search by a particular MSP, the results returned will show each spoken contribution in Parliament or a committee, ordered by date with the most recent contributions first. This will usually return a lot of results, but you can refine your search by keyword, date and/or by meeting (committee or Chamber business).
We’ve chosen to display the entirety of each MSP’s contribution in the search results. This is intended to reduce the number of times that users need to click into an actual report to get the information that they’re looking for, but in some cases it can lead to very short contributions (“Yes.”) or very long ones (Ministerial statements, for example.) We’ll keep this under review and get feedback from users on whether this approach best meets their needs.
Searching by keyword
There are two types of keyword search:
- A keyword search without quotation marks will look for every instance of each word used and rank the results by frequency and proximity. It will also include variants of the keywords using “porter stemming”. This is when the search looks for the “stem” of a word regardless of its ending. So, for example, a search for [salmon farm] will return each instance of “salmon” and each instance of “farm” as well as potentially including results for “farms”, “farmed” and “farming”.
- A keyword search with quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase used. So, for example, a search for “salmon farm” in quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase.
Combining search filters
If you select an MSP’s name from the dropdown menu, and add a phrase in quotation marks to the keyword field, then the search will return only examples of when the MSP said those exact words. You can further refine this search by adding a date range or selecting a particular committee or Meeting of the Parliament.
More complex keyword searches
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
- a search for “salmon farm” AND “Loch Lomond” will return only results which include both exact phrases
- a search for “salmon farm” NOT “Loch Lomond” will return results for “salmon farm” but exclude results which also include “Loch Lomond”
- a search for “salmon farm” OR “Loch Lomond” will return all results for “salmon farm” and all results for “Loch Lomond” regardless of whether they appear together
Searching by date
There are two ways of searching by date.
You can either use the Start date and End date options to run a search across a particular date range. For example, you may know that a particular subject was discussed at some point in the last few weeks and choose a date range to reflect that.
Alternatively, you can use one of the pre-defined date ranges under “Select a time period”. These are:
- Current session (all Official Reports since the current sessions started)
- Last 6 months
- Last 12 months
- each of the previous sessions of Parliament. (Selecting the information icon above the “Select a time period” menu will give you the exact dates for each session.)
- All sessions
- You can also choose to select a custom date range, although adding a Start or End date will mean the search automatically defaults to this option.
If you search by an individual session, the list of MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs and committees will update to show the information that was current at that time.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
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Displaying 772 contributions
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Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Low Income and Debt Inquiry
Meeting date: 12 May 2022
Emma Roddick
Thank you all for those answers. I have a follow-up question on disabled people. The things that are getting more expensive include energy bills, which we know will impact disabled people more. Sarah-Jayne Dunn commented that we are now in the warmer months. That will not be as helpful to people in certain island and coastal communities. Are you finding that, in addition to other characteristics, there is a disparity when it comes to location?
09:15Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Low Income and Debt Inquiry
Meeting date: 12 May 2022
Emma Roddick
In its submission, Support in Mind said that people with mental health problems often do not have the energy or motivation to improve their situation. I think that there is not enough understanding of the fact that, as well as being financially poor, people can be energy poor and time poor. Is there enough understanding within services—and in this building—of how exhausting it is to be constantly worried and working without an end in sight? I direct that question to SAMH.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Low Income and Debt Inquiry
Meeting date: 12 May 2022
Emma Roddick
My next question is for anyone with a general interest in the issue. Is anything being done to support children who are living in households that are in that situation? It will be quite traumatic for children who are growing up knowing that their parents are struggling and are exhausted all the time.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 2022 to 2026
Meeting date: 21 April 2022
Emma Roddick
Good morning. It is good to see you again, Bill. I want to pick up on a comment that you made about the importance of affordable travel. That is obviously a big barrier for many people in the Highlands and Islands. The plan discusses the complexity of rural poverty. I am particularly encouraged by the work that has been done on housing and the fact that evidence has been taken from the Anchor project in Shetland. Are there other aspects of rural poverty that you think need more attention?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 2022 to 2026
Meeting date: 21 April 2022
Emma Roddick
As always, I am struggling with the contradictions in our hybrid social security system. The Scottish Government wants to give money to parents to tackle child poverty, and it wants to help those same parents into work. The Government relies on universal credit, which is a reserved income-based benefit, to provide the data to determine who receives the Scottish child payment. Is it possible to do both those things when, under universal credit, a person who is in work might lose their benefits? In essence, can the policies to tackle child poverty be as effective as possible while they are being delivered under a hybrid social security model that is led by two Governments that have fundamentally different ideologies?
That is probably for Philip Whyte and Jack Evans.
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Case Transfer
Meeting date: 31 March 2022
Emma Roddick
Yes, that was helpful—thank you.
10:00Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Subordinate Legislation
Meeting date: 31 March 2022
Emma Roddick
Good morning, minister. You touched on the need for increases to disability and carers benefits to be linked to the UK rate. Do you believe that the UK Government should be uprating those benefits, which would, in turn, allow the Scottish Government to do the same?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Kinship Care
Meeting date: 31 March 2022
Emma Roddick
Good morning, minister. In the evidence session with kinship carers last week, their wish to have a more consistent approach towards how kinship care is defined came through very strongly. Some had one child in one category and one child in another. They told us that they wanted one clear definition: that children in their care were looked after and could therefore receive the same support as other care-experienced children.
Will the Scottish Government consider a clearer and more consistent approach to the definition of those in kinship care, whether through legislation or otherwise?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Case Transfer
Meeting date: 31 March 2022
Emma Roddick
Minister, it is possible that, after the case transfer, people who are currently on DLA might not end up staying on ADP. Do you think that that situation will be uncommon? Where it happens, will the data be monitored so that we can get a full picture of why it has happened and consider whether any changes to support or criteria should be made in the future?
Social Justice and Social Security Committee
Medium-term Financial Strategy and Resource Spending Review Framework
Meeting date: 17 March 2022
Emma Roddick
My first question is about child poverty. We expect that, by reducing child poverty, we will create budget savings in other areas, but it is hard to solidly link underspends or reductions in spend elsewhere to a reduction in child poverty. Can you suggest ways in which we can monitor those effects as effectively as possible? How can we evidence knock-on effects and evaluate success on that level?
My other question is about the fiscal framework review. It is fair to say that a hybrid social security model comes with a lot of challenges. We hear a lot about the limitations on future planning because of the threat of changes to the block grant, the extra costs of diverging from UK policy and so on. Does having a hybrid reserved and devolved social security system make financial sense? Can we ever protect the social security budget from risks effectively while we are so intrinsically tied to UK policy decisions?
